Enceladus' south pole is warm under the frost

Press Release ESA, 13 March 2017

Over the past decade, the international Cassini mission has revealed intense activity at the southern pole of Saturn's icy moon, Enceladus, with warm fractures venting water-rich jets that hint at an underground sea. A new study, based on microwave observations of this region, shows that the moon is warmer than expected just a few metres below its icy surface. This suggests that heat is produced over a broad area in this polar region and transported under the crust, and that Enceladus' reservoir of liquid water might be lurking only a few kilometres beneath.

Many of Cassini's flybys of Enceladus have been dedicated to understanding the structure of the interior of this fascinating body and its potentially habitable water reservoir. Now, a study based on data collected during a close flyby in 2011 indicates that the moon's hidden sea might be closer to the surface than previously thought.

"During this flyby, we obtained the first and, unfortunately, only high-resolution observations of Enceladus' south pole at microwave wavelengths," says Alice Le Gall from Laboratoire Atmosphères, Milieux, Observations Spatiales (LATMOS), and Université Versailles Saint-Quentin (UVSQ), France. Alice is an associate member of the Cassini RADAR instrument team and the lead scientist of the new study, published today in Nature Astronomy... Read more